Why I think our brains are so powerful

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Originally Posted by marijuanavillebilly

sorry dude, but the truth is humans use about 85-100% of their brain. (depending on the situation)

it may not be noticeable but the next time you sweat, get thirsty, get hungry, feel pain, feel any sensation at all, that your brain had to go and find the memory of those things by itself without being asked, just doing it, and giving it to your body in a matter of milli-seconds.

your brain has the ability to delay certain sensations, such as pain, but only when absolutely necessary will it do this.

your brain is constantly doing minor and major adjustments to your body, keeping you alive, so if im using 10%, how do i survive doing math problems?

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All of the functions of living are controlled by a very very small portion of the brain, by the back of the head and brain stem. Nothing more. Many animals have ONLY this. Heart beat, breathing shit of that nature.


The other lobes and smaller sections only control small parts such as the 5 senses(very very basic general psyche even teaches this)


The rest of the cerebral cortex contains a vast array of information we just can't or don't tap into all at once. We may be using bits from every section of the brain all at once, but it's not working to it's full capacity all the time, not even close. But we use 85-100 percent of it's possible functions, but not to their fully possible functionality.

Wow that was something to think about.

My theory is less complex then that. I just saw a special on the Human body on discovery channel, and that shit explains alot. Most of your responses are due to chemical reactions and releases of hormones when the body feels its under stress or danger which can be instantaneous.

In your long boarding issue it is actually the release of adrenaline probably. Which made you react faster and handle your situation.

Wikipedia -

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Epinephrine is a "fight or flight" hormone, and plays a central role in the short-term stress reaction. It is released from the adrenal glands when danger threatens or in an emergency. Such triggers may be threatening, exciting, or environmental stressor conditions such as high noise levels or bright light (see Fight-or-flight response).

An example of noise-induced trigger of epinephrine release is tinnitus. The fight-or-flight response caused by tinnitus is a contributor to physical stress seen in tinnitus-patients,[4] exacerbating the case.

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Think or Thwim » Jill Bolte Taylor Describes What It Was Like To Have a Stroke

Really good presentation on what happened with her brain while having a stroke

yes brain is important but i rather be a little less smart and smoke marry jane because ur brain is useless in a hitler world government controls everything and its just pointless in being smart unless u want the thing thats root of all evil is money and ever worse greed.

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Originally Posted by Xyz505

yes brain is important but i rather be a little less smart and smoke marry jane because ur brain is useless in a hitler world government controls everything and its just pointless in being smart unless u want the thing thats root of all evil is money and ever worse greed.

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Im gonna take a stab at it and say you dont do well in school...

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Originally Posted by Xyz505

yes brain is important but i rather be a little less smart and smoke marry jane because ur brain is useless in a hitler world government controls everything and its just pointless in being smart unless u want the thing thats root of all evil is money and ever worse greed.

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Try and find your thoughts before you show your words.

brain≠mind. I think that the mind functions outside the brain-time. Intuition is thru the pineal gland which is hyper dimensional
and not limited by time, hence it's psychic ability to us.

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Originally Posted by Xyz505

yes brain is important but i rather be a little less smart and smoke marry jane because ur brain is useless in a hitler world government controls everything and its just pointless in being smart unless u want the thing thats root of all evil is money and ever worse greed.

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This kind of thing must be where that theory comes from, the one about using only 10% of your brain.

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Originally Posted by Xyz505

yes brain is important but i rather be a little less smart and smoke marry jane because ur brain is useless in a hitler world government controls everything and its just pointless in being smart unless u want the thing thats root of all evil is money and ever worse greed.

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Maybe the government controls YOUR mind... (I hope not, for the government's sake) but your brain is the only thing that can keep you free. You might consider practicing using it.

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Originally Posted by Innominate

Just imagine everything that has been created by the human brain.

Your brain needs plenty of water.

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I water my brain daily. I feed it molasses and FF nutes :thumbsup:

today i was txting my m8 to see if he wanted to get drunk
just as i clicked send i recived a message from the same m8 asking if i wanted to get drunk :D

the other day i was going to go to get a pizza but didnt have the money
then a m8 came roudn with the exact pizza i was planning on getting

i dont understand how the brain works atall
i mean how am i thinking?
my brain is just fleshy muscle shit :stoned:
its like my finger being able to think for itself?


artificial intelligence..i understand, its a computer that takes notice of things and rememberes them for future reference
human intelligence..i dont understand

its all a game :D



o yeah
also
the way chemicals effect our brain :hippy:
How extacy can make you want do dance, talk and feel friendly

at the end of the day its me who usually decides these things but a ittle chemicle can over ride my normal thoughts

if you ask me the alcohol is the strongest drug..drink enough of it and you end up naked in front of all your friends, up a tree, in a police cell, in bed with your sister!

o yer ive gone of the sumbjecty lol

but yer the brain is weird :D

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Originally Posted by CanaDanKs Inc.

What if....by not having those senses...you would see life as it really is? Without filters...

Or what if, your brain took over and created false information to compensate for the senses. Now that could be wild too :jointsmile:

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like synesthesia?

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Originally Posted by stinkyattic

Maybe the government controls YOUR mind... (I hope not, for the government's sake) but your brain is the only thing that can keep you free. You might consider practicing using it.

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I love people who perpetuate the ideal of "it's good to be a dumbass"

Because I like to perpetuate Natural Law.


So I help those who'd fall under their own stupidity fall faster.

our brains contain more neuron connections then stars in the universe...

And i think our brains are similar to a computer brain because i think we observe and experience things in the world but our genes and biochemistry can determine how we react to them.

i also believe plants are intelligent.. they have fellings too just like us only difference is they dont have eyes noses or ears to sense the world with..

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Originally Posted by Kbrandon

i also believe plants are intelligent.. they have fellings too just like us only difference is they dont have eyes noses or ears to sense the world with..

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Now that seems a little silly. Plants don't even have a cerebral cortex let alone the complicated limbic system which is influenced/controlled by the hypothalamus through the secretion of a hormone called GnRH.

I might be slightly off but that's the basic gist of it. That's like saying an amoeba has emotions. heh :smokin:

Some people will be lucky if they ever become as smart as a plant.

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Originally Posted by dragonrider

Some people will be lucky if they ever become as smart as a plant.

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:S2:

I think I'm one of those people, my plants are constantly 'outsmarting' me, routinely forcing me to change my growing habits...

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Originally Posted by Barney Trouble

Think or Thwim » Jill Bolte Taylor Describes What It Was Like To Have a Stroke

Really good presentation on what happened with her brain while having a stroke

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That was really good!

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Originally Posted by Xyz505

yes brain is important but i rather be a little less smart and smoke marry jane because ur brain is useless in a hitler world government controls everything and its just pointless in being smart unless u want the thing thats root of all evil is money and ever worse greed.

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Gov't doesn't control MY mind...maybe you fit in with the rest of the sheep, and know it. Thats worse than ignorance...thats like the guy on the matrix that told them where neo and morpheus were to get put back in the matrix...i guess ignorance can be bliss....and the reference to ignorance and MJ, well thank you for making the gov't point about MJ....

:smokebong:
whisekytango

If I can add another obscure reference from the matrix...when Morpheus explains the definition of "real" being completely arbitrary and solely dependent on electrical signals being interpreted by the brain. It's essential true in essence, look at many of the mammals on earth that cannot observe the world by perceiving visible light.

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Originally Posted by daihashi

Now that seems a little silly. Plants don't even have a cerebral cortex let alone the complicated limbic system which is influenced/controlled by the hypothalamus through the secretion of a hormone called GnRH.

I might be slightly off but that's the basic gist of it. That's like saying an amoeba has emotions. heh :smokin:

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Well... i think to say the awareness is caused solely by the brain is a bit precipitate, even if it is the usual viewpoint of todays science. I think what we call awareness is afected by the brain, but not caused by it. So, wouldnt be impossible to brainless beings to be aware, even if their awareness were completly alien to us.
Remember that during the middle ages people (and even the "scientists" from that times) didnt believe that the diseases were caused by invisible microorganisms, just because "it would be impossible that could there be such small living things", and because, after all, they were invisible.

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Originally Posted by Barney Trouble

If I can add another obscure reference from the matrix...when Morpheus explains the definition of "real" being completely arbitrary and solely dependent on electrical signals being interpreted by the brain. It's essential true in essence, look at many of the mammals on earth that cannot observe the world by perceiving visible light.

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Man... thats absolutely true. Its one of deepest realizations anyone can have... everything we see, everything we touch, everything we hear... its all into our brains, and only there. The world only is as we see for us. If we could enter the brain of a dog, for example, we would percieve the world in a completly different way, but as real as we call our world... real is what we take for being real. But in fact, nothing is absolutely real, cause how everything look like depends on the eye of the beholder.

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Originally Posted by Coelho

Well... i think to say the awareness is caused solely by the brain is a bit precipitate, even if it is the usual viewpoint of todays science. I think what we call awareness is afected by the brain, but not caused by it. So, wouldnt be impossible to brainless beings to be aware, even if their awareness were completly alien to us.
Remember that during the middle ages people (and even the "scientists" from that times) didnt believe that the diseases were caused by invisible microorganisms, just because "it would be impossible that could there be such small living things", and because, after all, they were invisible.

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Of course everything is aware on some level. Plants are aware of lights, air, soil in their environment, pests. However that was not the original argument. The original argument was that plants have feelings. Which is a complex function of the brain.

Show me a study or research article stating that plants have feelings.

We can prove that animals have a sense of fear, anger etc etc. Plants on the other hand do not.

Plants do not have the higher level functions needed to make emotions possible. To argue that plants have emotions is like saying definitively the sky and ocean are blue because the earth feels like it; when in actuality the sky and ocean are blue due to the shorter wavelengths of light that are unable to penetrate the atmosphere properly and getting trapped in gas particles causing them to reflect in all directions thus making the sky blue.

I feel that if people are going to make such far fetched claims they should back it with some sort of research and try to reference where they found the data to support their claims; otherwise it's all just fairy tales made from heresay.

That's actually pretty accurate. I took a biorobotics/cybernetics class where we learned a lot about how our brains work, so i'll see if I can contribute. :)

Your brain is divided up into a bunch of lobes, each which perform different tasks. This is where the idea comes from that you only use 10% of your brain. At any given time, you're only using a small part of your brain, but over the course of your life you use all of it. It's a lot like a house, in that you use every room, but most of the time, any given room is unoccupied.

But on the topic of brain speed, when your brain is stimulated a lot, it can speed up to about 40 Hz, although usually it's more like 12 Hz, and when you're asleep, it's a lot lower. But as far as the mechanism that your brain uses to operate, that's actually very well understood. You learn when your neurons strengthen the connections between them, and the way that neurons communicate with each other is rather simple. But you have trillions of neurons, with each one connected to thousands of other neurons, so the complexity of the whole system is astounding.

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Originally Posted by SantaClawz

Your brain can actually slow relative time in tense situations. They did a test with a digital number board, in which the numbers were flicking by too fast too see under normal conditions, but for the first time bungie jumper it was easy to distingish the sequence. What is actually happening it you are seeing faster then normal, kind of like a video card, normally you get 32frames per second, but overclocked you get 60fps. This is also why people in tense situations report it feeling like it took place longer then it actually did. Time is just a chemical reaction within the brain anyway.

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Originally Posted by daihashi

Now that seems a little silly. Plants don't even have a cerebral cortex let alone the complicated limbic system which is influenced/controlled by the hypothalamus through the secretion of a hormone called GnRH.

I might be slightly off but that's the basic gist of it. That's like saying an amoeba has emotions. heh :smokin:

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well neither does a venus flytrap...

i was watching something on i dunno if it was history channel or mythbusters or sumthin.. but they were trynna see if the plant had feelings so they hooked it up to some electrode and made a guy stand in front of it and think about harming it... and as soon as he did the needs started to jump...

it was amazinggg..

at any one point in time im sure im using no less that 50% of my brain, this comes from nothing but i do feel that to be true, and by "me using" i mean, it is what is focused on what i consider focusing on something. As in typing this, thinking this in my head, and thinking about the music playing on my computer and the humming of my laptop, the light on the right of me, the slight pain i feel, and the tapping of my keyboard keys. And i feel that no more than 50% of my brain is concentrated on my functioning. that part of me which controls the heart, and other unvoluntary muscle movements, including those which occur due to my current motions, like moving my toe, or the movement of my fingers to type, and those caused from the changes in body posture which keep me erect and not falling. So i feel that at any one time there is somewhere between 50 and 100 percent brain usage, and that the amount is not measured in mass of useage, or connections, but it is used in the fact that about 50% of my actions are concious on some level, and 50% are, and while it may not seem like it, only a fraction of that 50% is something that im aware of at any one moment in time, and that is the part which is what i think with, that includes inner dialogue and memory tasks. so please, everyone, have at how im wrong.

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Originally Posted by jimmy8778

at any one point in time im sure im using no less that 50% of my brain, this comes from nothing but i do feel that to be true, and by "me using" i mean, it is what is focused on what i consider focusing on something.

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Yeah, it might feel like you're using most of your brain, but are you really? I mean, what about the part of your brain that remembers how your grandma's fabric softener smells, or the name of your second grade teacher? Although I have to admit, when I'm stoned I can "feel" my brain working too. ;)

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Originally Posted by daihashi

Of course everything is aware on some level. Plants are aware of lights, air, soil in their environment, pests. However that was not the original argument. The original argument was that plants have feelings. Which is a complex function of the brain.

Show me a study or research article stating that plants have feelings.

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Well, man, in this case im sorry. I meant the plants are aware, not that they have feelings like humans do.

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Originally Posted by daihashi

We can prove that animals have a sense of fear, anger etc etc.

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Can we? I think we wont never ever know how an animal actually feels like. We only can see their "outside" reactions. When we see a dog moving its tail, we infer that its happy. But we cant actually know how the dog is feeling inside its dogs mind. We can only infer, only make assumptions based on their behavior compared with our behavior. But we can not assume that the animals are feeling the same things we humans feel, that the animal emotions "feels like" human emotions.

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Originally Posted by daihashi

Plants do not have the higher level functions needed to make emotions possible.

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Indeed... plants cannot have human-like or animal-like emotions. But if we assume they have awareness, who knows how it feels like to be a plant?

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Originally Posted by daihashi

I feel that if people are going to make such far fetched claims they should back it with some sort of research and try to reference where they found the data to support their claims; otherwise it's all just fairy tales made from heresay.

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Well... unfortunately i cant back up my "fairy tales" with any scientifical research, as todays science still is not developed enough to research such things.
But if you or anybody else has curiosity about from where i, a scientist (physicist) learned and had my mind made to believe such things, look at:

The Art of Dreaming

It can seems absurd initially. But if you take your time, think about it for long enough, and keep an open mind free from any preconceptions, everything will start to make sense.

coelho

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But we can not assume that the animals are feeling the same things we humans feel, that the animal emotions "feels like" human emotions.

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you ever seen a beaten tortured dog? they have fear. call it fight-or-flight if you want but its semantics.

db:smokin:

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Originally Posted by khronik

Yeah, it might feel like you're using most of your brain, but are you really? I mean, what about the part of your brain that remembers how your grandma's fabric softener smells, or the name of your second grade teacher? Although I have to admit, when I'm stoned I can "feel" my brain working too. ;)

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i have felt my brain working whilst high, and it is an awesome feeling, though if i think about it, i can imagine a sense of something if i think about any part of my body, including my brain. But on to the other part of what you said, when it comes to the "smell of grandma's fabric softener" my brain has made neural connections that when i sense the smell of the softner, the electrical impulses from my nose race through my brain, lighting up the "memory" of the smell and i recognize it, so at any one point in time im not thinking of my second grade teacher or grandma, but if i put a process to it, i become aware of their existence and the downy scent of g-ma, but only because i become aware of their existence, before i read your post, it wasnt a thought on my mind, but it was a path in my brain, so it wasnt used so much as stored in my brain. but it is a good point to bring forward, how do we consider usage, the amount of stored memories plus our current output, or just the memories/connections, or just the output, its a line which i drew for myself, how about for you.

I never really understand why people argue about whether animals have emotions. Of course they do. Emotions come from our most primal instincts, and it stands to reason that at least other mammals would have them.

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Originally Posted by SnSstealth

coelho

you ever seen a beaten tortured dog? they have fear. call it fight-or-flight if you want but its semantics.

db:smokin:

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Originally Posted by khronik

I never really understand why people argue about whether animals have emotions. Of course they do. Emotions come from our most primal instincts, and it stands to reason that at least other mammals would have them.

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Well... i dont meant that the animals havent emotions. Only that we cant know for sure how they feel, with their animal minds, their emotions. Note that im speaking of the subjective experience of the emotion.
Is the same problem, how can i be sure that i see, lets say, the green color the same way any of you do? I see a color that was said to me that was called "green". And everybody else sees also this color, and calls it "green". But my question is how can i be sure that the "feeling" of green, that undescritible (does this word exist?) sensation my brain "feels" when it sees the green, the subjective perception of it is the same?
Or in other words, if i were able to enter other persons mind, to see the world as they see, does the green would look like the same as it looks like for me? Or, what i call green other person would see as blue, but call it green (cause they learned that color was called green)?
Thats what i mean about the animals emotions. I dont doubt they feel. But i still think its questionable to think they feel it like we do.

I don't Know if it has been mention, I'm Ambidextrous {using both hands with equal ease}, So I use both sides of my Brain, Where Right Handed people us there Left-side Brain, &^<> or Left Handed peolpe use Right-side Brain:cool::wtf::wtf::D:D

That's My 2-Cent's,/`~`\/`~`\/`~:smokin::smokin:

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Originally Posted by Coelho

Well... i dont meant that the animals havent emotions. Only that we cant know for sure how they feel, with their animal minds, their emotions. Note that im speaking of the subjective experience of the emotion.
Is the same problem, how can i be sure that i see, lets say, the green color the same way any of you do? I see a color that was said to me that was called "green". And everybody else sees also this color, and calls it "green". But my question is how can i be sure that the "feeling" of green, that undescritible (does this word exist?) sensation my brain "feels" when it sees the green, the subjective perception of it is the same?
Or in other words, if i were able to enter other persons mind, to see the world as they see, does the green would look like the same as it looks like for me? Or, what i call green other person would see as blue, but call it green (cause they learned that color was called green)?
Thats what i mean about the animals emotions. I dont doubt they feel. But i still think its questionable to think they feel it like we do.

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I've already covered this. Generally most people do perceive or feel things the same way.

People who have their perceptions mixed up or their senses. For instance. They may see the color green. The color green to us is the color green. But to them when they see the color green they may feel fear, joy, or see the number 2. This neurological condition is called synesthesia.

Animals have a hypothalamus and a limbic system just like we do. Studies show that the same/similar areas of the brain are responsive to different emotions with the secretion of the GnRH hormone as the animals go through their emotions.

With that said, I can no better perceive an animals sense of fear than I know what fear feels like to you. Earlier you stated that we can only perceive animals feelings from the outside. This is not true. We can see this in a lab environment as well. If you were saying the average Joe Shmoe at home can't truely tell then I suppose you're right.

Point being, Animals have emotions due to higher level brain functions in the hypothalamus/limbic system. Plants do not have this ability.

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Originally Posted by Kbrandon

well neither does a venus flytrap...

i was watching something on i dunno if it was history channel or mythbusters or sumthin.. but they were trynna see if the plant had feelings so they hooked it up to some electrode and made a guy stand in front of it and think about harming it... and as soon as he did the needs started to jump...

it was amazinggg..

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you seem to have forgotten to mention the part that it was in an old bomb shelter and the results were inconsistent. So they moved the expierement outside with NEW sensors and did not get any results.

Grant said the most convincing evidence to support the myth came from the same organization that he was a member of.

Seems to me that there is room to be biased and in science and discovery you have to be a neutral party.

Really the results were inconclusive at best. I would not trust mythbusters to conduct a complex expierement to determine if a plant has feelings. There's more to it than measuring needles on a polygraph.

Remember it's just a TV show, and with all things on TV it's meant for our entertainment.

i agree with coelho about the color thing, infact its a thought that ive had floating around, and have tried to explain whilst high, and failed, and tried to explain while sober, and failed, and decided i will continue to think it. I agree i mean, i see a color ive been told is blue, and you see the same object, and call it blue, but who says what i consider blue if i were you would look like what blue looks like to me, what if your blue was my purple, we will never know, and the attempts to use science in the form of the radioactive spectrum doesnt work because the colors still look that way to you, and youve associated the name of that color to the color that you see, and accept that the world looks that way. As far as anyone knows, when i see the world it is really inverted from you, but i still call the sun yellow, and the grass green.

As far as I've seen, there is very little evidence suggesting our that brains are quantum computers or that quantum entanglement explains intuition, etc.

The human species is an adaptation of genetic material that already existed on this planet. We are great apes. As such, our brain physiology is quite similar to chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans (we share many of the same structures and layout). Our brains even function in the same ways (studies have revealed that ape brains react to intent and not simply the immediate environment in front of them). Apes can be taught a lexicon of over 200 symbols and form correct sentences with them. One of the main differences showing up in recent studies is the unique human ability to use the brain as a tool for planning the future. Apes can complete complex mazes more quickly than humans, which demonstrates an ability to grasp the concept, hold the idea in one's mind, navigate the maze (plan the future), and then make the connection between all these activities and actually, finally, draw the sequence. This kind of test shows that ape brains have the capacity to form complexity, all the pieces are there, they simply don't use them, the dots haven't been connected yet in their genes. This is a helpful perspective when trying to understand the power of the human brain.

One must understand that we humans are, above all else, genetic material. As with any organic, living entity, it is the utmost important imperative of survival that drives us. Our minds are capable of great intellectual feats, to be sure, but our instincts are rooted in survival. Your muscles are powerful enough to tear themselves apart from bone, thus temporarily destroying themselves. Your brain unconsciously regulates the appropriateness of varying degrees of force. In a life-threatening situation, survival instincts dictate that harm in the now to preserve future life is more important than that temporary, possibly crippling, risk. Most people aren't aware that they can lift as much as a trained athlete, but only under the right circumstances. This is because muscles are designed to store energy at all times, so there is always a reserve to call upon in times of need.

The brain is compartmentalized for specialization. While everyone shares a similar structure responsible for things as speech and counting, no two brains are identical in physical locations of where these processes occur. In tests done on brain surgeries of conscious individuals, and attempts to map areas of the brain, it has been found that the location for, say, being able to speak a thought will be millimeters or even centimeters away from where your or my brain handles such a function. In fact, it has been found that the brain devotes specific physical regions to nothing more than storing categories of things; there is an area for storing lists of "tools" and a physically separate area for storing lists of "flowers," and in no two people is the map of these locations identical. Obviously, a large portion of our brain is devoted to labeling things into categories and storing those relationships for later. We are good at picking out patterns and shapes from random noise to the extend that we see faces in almost anything. We look for, even crave, patterns.

The brain can control what we feel, in terms of sensations (obviously). Pain suppression is a prime example. Individuals whose profession demands a higher pain tolerance train their minds and bodies to be able to cope with higher levels of pain, to the extent that an average person would faint upon such intensity. Athletes are good examples. The physical process by which this is accomplished is understood: chemicals controllers that the brain uses can bind to receptors in the body, thus blocking pain signals from being successfully transmitted the entire length of ones nervous system into the brain, thus being dulled or not registered at all. Separate nervous systems control the unconscious and the conscious efforts of our minds, so that it is possible to both survive and perform mathematical calculations, and why breath and heart rate are not mentally tasking endeavors.

Of course, this tricking of the system can go both ways. One can see this clearly in the phenomena of phantom limbs. When someone suffers a loss of, say, a hand, the brain can deal with that loss in multiple ways: when it stops receiving feedback from that part of the body it will either "accept" the loss and block further attempts to register input from that region of the brain associated with that region of the body, or remap a new body part to the old region of the brain (so that if one were to touch your left leg, it could potentially be remapped in a way that, had you lost your right hand, your brain would interpret the touch on the left leg as having come from the right hand, and in effect cause you to still feel the full experiences of the limb that no longer exists), or finally occasionally cause severe pains that seem to emanate from the lost limb when in fact there is nothing physical to cause the pain. Each of these cases is a result of how the brain ends up dealing with that specific loss of input, and as you can imagine phantom limb pain is quite terrible, as no amount of physical efforts will ease the problem.

However, recent studies have found that if one can see one's own brain activity in real time on a screen, if shown what areas are responsible for what actions, one can consciously reduce the activity of that part of the brain, thus curing as much as 50% of the pain (50% also happens to be the standard amount of pain physical medications can reduce). Just by seeing your brain in real time, you can change how it behaves.

The idea that we use significantly less than our available brain mass is a confirmed falsehood. Yes, mental growth is a process of pruning unused skills and expanding useful skills. Very young children, for example, under the age of 6 months show an ability to recognize individual faces of apes. However, since almost all interaction with other animals in our daily lives involved humans, the brain always drops connections leading to facial recognition beyond our species. It simply isn't useful, but the capability exists. Even scientists who devote a lifetime to studying these animals cannot reach the level of recognition all of us have at one point in our lives. What we use the most is strengthened, and what we use the least is pruned. But the beauty of the brain is that, if one chooses to, many areas can be re-strengthened or expanded even if you've neglected them (a writer becoming a mathematician, for example).

This leads to interesting results: because the brain so completely controls the rest of our body, and how we perform in any task, one can strengthen one's body's ability to perform a physical task by doing nothing more than thinking about it. By thinking about an activity, the brain is using the pathways laid out for everything involved in that activity, including musculature control. One can actually slightly improve one's muscle mass by mental thought alone. Athletes who consistently visualize tasks that are difficult for them more quickly master those tasks. Mental exercises have, as a result, become increasingly incorporated into professional athletes' training. This is also how meditation can be used to control bodily functions normally below our conscious control such as heart rate.

We can know things about our brain in relation to time and other species, based on the evolution of this organ and comparisons to other animals with similar structures. Certain emotions, like fear and revulsion, are handled in older parts of our brain, suggesting that these base emotions were all we had at one time, and that as the brain developed new areas formed to handle an increasing scope of emotions. So we can say definitively whether or not other animals have emotions, because other animals haven't evolved the complexities of our brain, but they have enough structure to recognize the most base of survival instincts such as fear. Emotions are a part of the survival toolkit, and we're not alone in that regard.

Prodigies and those who are exceedingly talented in specific areas are still somewhat of a mystery. Van Gogh was thought to have a form of epilepsy that gave him frontal lobe seizures, the result being a more vivid interpretation of visual data input, causing him to create unique pieces of art. What do Nathan Haselbauer (IQ of 162, founder of the International High IQ Society) and Albert Einstein have in common? Both their brains are slightly smaller than average. IIRC, Recent studies have suggested that potentially as much as 50% of "intelligence" is inherited.

In the absence of stimuli, one's brain typically strives to create it. The brain is a processing facility for input, and without input it seeks out data to process. That is why in recent years we have begun to understand the true cruelty and detriment to a person that solitary isolation can bring (it is used as punishment in dealing with prisoners, etc). It can easily cause permanent mental damage, and in fact has been demonstrated to do so.

Also, recent evidence suggests that boredom is a result of an inability to concentrate. And one of the genes responsible for speech in humans has been linked to motor function in mice.

As far as comparing AI to human intelligence, one must remember that ours is the only intelligence we are aware of. As such, it is the goal of the field of AI to create a digital/computer version of our own intelligence. There really isn't much to compare, except in how poorly current AI is compared to our own capacity.

By the way, there is a $1,000,000.000 prize "to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." (Challenge Info - James Randi Educational Foundation) Not needing the money or not being interested in collecting money is not an excuse for those who claim paranormal powers to not take this challenge - one can easily win the money and donate it to any charity afterwards. That fairly easily rules out "psychic abilities" until proven otherwise.

There is an autistic woman who "thinks like a cow." (BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon)

As far as things being in the eye of the beholder... well. First, the goal of modern science is to create reproducible results. If I do something, get a result, ask someone else on the other side of the world to do the same thing, and they get the same result, and we keep doing this until we find that the result is universal for everyone... we've reliably created a way to define what happens as a result to a certain event or stimulus. One can argue that exactly everything is completely absurd on the basis that every human experience is inductive reasoning, but it is a framework inconducive to forward thought. Beauty, however, is a scientific formula. We are genetically predisposed to find symmetry beautiful, and this has been proven. That's why models typically have extreme symmetry (which is rare in nature). Doesn't necessarily imply every one of us has the same tastes, just that tastes can be genetic (which is obvious; rarely do people decide to switch to a diet of raw sand).

There are no nerve endings in the brain to sense pain, etc. You are experiencing the brain's capacity for imagination when "feeling" it under the influence of cannabis.

The color argument is simple: what is "blue" to me and to you are the same if our brains were trained to label the same eye/brain reaction to that wavelength of light in our childhood the same way and if neither of us has abnormally formed eyes (in the sense of random genetic mutation). The wavelengths of colors are very specific, so that unless you have radically different eyes from the rest of the species, you will sense the same kind of visual input as someone else with standard equipment would. It's all about the structure of the eye! The label of something isn't terribly important; what's in a name? The subjectivity of it is simply that we might use different labels for the same thing. And our eyes invert images of the outside world from "upside down" to "rightside up" as the data travels through the eye. To see things upside down is to see how they really are. An evolutionary fluke flipped it for us, possibly randomly, possibly because it allowed us to better cope with the world (although it is quite unnerving to see things upside down, research has shown that one's brain can easily adapt and consider it the norm in very little time, a few days, and that afterwards to see things normally is equally initially disorienting).

Because emotions are so integrated into our consciousness via their use as an evolutionary survival skill it is possible to form extremely strong connections between discrete stimuli (not talking about synesthesia, just the natural ability of our brain to produce extremely strong feelings), so that a person can experience synesthesia without the involuntary neurological condition. It is because our brains function so thoroughly through labeling and categorizing that it is rare on average, and why it is easily experienced under the influence of various mind-altering substances which bypass the natural flow of the brain and thus transcend the categorical barriers. That was a very McKenna-esque thing for me to say. :P

By the way, I watch way too many documentaries. I can list them if anyone is interested in recent brain research.

if we use 10 percent of our brains imagine if u can use 100% of our brains. i think psychics use maybe 15 or more thats why there psychic, because maybe they use more percents of there brains. maybe the smartest man or god uses 100% of his brain...sorry if that was hard to read or understnad im bakes right now lol

The Straight Dope: Do we really use only 10 percent of our brains?

According to this, using 100% of your brain would result in a grand mal seizure, which is where all your neurons fire at once.

By the way, I thought I'd mention that of all the genes we have in our bodies, a full third of them are expressed in our brains. Our minds are clearly influenced a great deal by our genetic profiles.